another country

I wake up as usual
to jazz and marble coffee,
to leftovers gone the very
stoniest of stony cold,
to the 24 hour news cycle,
to the sounds of the world.
The weather today, storm systems
swooping in like a murder of crows.

Today is the feast day of some
gone archaic saint who wandered in
the desert sunburnt and bearded
whilst performing miracles of healing.
In celebration of this devoted stoic,
hosannas fill the background
of a country once my own.

Finally spring,
but how much did I learn
from the winter just now passing?
How many geodes were extracted
from the ice
to be explicated and marveled at,
to be classified?
There was, mostly, the cold
seeping pervasive into
the forests of my bones.

It's been an age since the time
of saints and miracles and mysteries.
These days we need to choose
and elevate our own holy ones,
blessed and blessing ones,
who will touch us
and let us know.

Last night I dreamed of a mythic Russia,
a snow-swamped, impassable country.
The houses were frosted over, silent,
cluttered up with debris including
photos in cracked frames and
books that slid from frozen shelves.
Everywhere there were reminders
of a lost and better time,
a time before
the slippage started.